


Something Shining

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Blood, Coming Out, First Time, Hickeys, Love Bites, M/M, Trans Herbert, Trans character written by trans author, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, ah i see, how is hickeys not an established tag, so pretty standard Reanimator there, the blood isn't sexy it's just a plot device
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:27:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22164826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: “Do you want to have sex with me?” He asks, perfectly frankly, as if he’s asking if Dan will stop by the store on the way home for milk or if he’d pass Herbert the vial at the other end of the table in the lab. Dan gapes at him for a moment and then quickly closes his mouth as Herbert’s expression grows frustrated. “It’s a simple question, Dan.”“I… yes.” Dan admits. “Do you want to have sex with me?”“Yes, I do.” His tone is brisk. “But I think I need to make you aware of something first.”
Relationships: Daniel Cain/Herbert West
Comments: 7
Kudos: 126





	Something Shining

Dan hears Herbert swear from across the lab and looks up to see a truly astonishing amount of blood. Herbert’s made a mistake with the body, it seems. Or at least, that’s what Dan assumes until he sees Herbert withdraw from the table and hurry to the sink. 

“Are you alright?” Dan asks, and Herbert waves a hand dismissively. The other he's running under the water.

“I’m fine, it’s a superficial cut.” Dan moves to stand beside him nonetheless, watches the water run red down the drain. It doesn’t seem superficial from where he’s standing. 

“Are you sure?” 

Herbert turns his hand over and Dan sees a long gash from forefinger to where his thumb meets his wrist. “Jesus, Herbert, that probably needs stitches.” 

“It’s a good thing I’m a doctor, then, isn’t it?” Herbert says, and Dan shakes his head. 

“Absolutely not. You’re not stitching up your own hand, I can do it.” 

Herbert sighs but lets Dan wrap his hand in gauze and direct him to a chair while he gathers supplies. Dan doesn’t doubt Herbert could sew his own hand back together, but he also doesn’t think he should have to if he has another option. When he returns to Herbert and takes the cap off the topical numbing agent they keep for exactly these sorts of injuries, Herbert’s shoulders are hunched and he’s cradling his injured hand in his lap.

“What were you even thinking about? Usually it’s me accidentally hurting myself, not you.” Dan asks as he takes Herbert’s hand and removes the gauze. Herbert shrugs. 

“I don’t know.” He sounds tired, Dan realizes. “Nothing at all, I suppose. I’ve been… distracted all day.” He stays quiet as Dan applies the gel carefully, keeping one eye on Herbert’s reactions and easing off as he winces. 

Dan makes quick work of the stitches and sets the needle aside before raising Herbert’s hand to look at it more closely. Herbert inhales sharply all of a sudden, and Dan frowns. 

“Sorry.” 

“It’s fine.” Herbert says, very softly. He doesn’t take his hand away. 

Dan has the sudden urge to turn it over and press a kiss to Herbert’s palm, and when he meets Herbert’s eyes he sees something of his own quiet desire echoed in them. _Distracted_ , Dan thinks, a suspicion forming in his mind.

Herbert’s palm is calloused and warm under his lips. “Daniel-” His voice comes out slightly strangled. 

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. They’ve been looking out for each other this way for years, since they first started working together. Dan remembers patching each other up as early as the night Dean Halsey died. This is the first time Dan’s given in to the urge to kiss Herbert, though, and he’s somewhat surprised to find Herbert isn’t throwing him off. “What?” He says, not letting go of Herbert’s hand. 

Herbert looks like he’s making up his mind about something. “Will you come upstairs with me?” 

Dan follows him to the main floor, and then, with eyes raised, to the bedroom up on the landing. His heart is pounding. This feels strange, too fast and unlike Herbert and Dan rounds on him once he’s closed the door to the bedroom behind them. 

“What’s going on, Herbert?” 

“Do you want to have sex with me?” He asks, perfectly frankly, as if he’s asking if Dan will stop by the store on the way home for milk or if he’d pass Herbert the vial at the other end of the table in the lab. Dan gapes at him for a moment and then quickly closes his mouth as Herbert’s expression grows frustrated. “It’s a simple question, Dan.” 

“I… yes.” Dan admits. “Do _you_ want to have sex with _me_?” 

“Yes, I do.” His tone is brisk. “But I think I need to make you aware of something first.” 

“Alright.” Dan says slowly. He’s a little concerned by Herbert’s tone and manner, wants to soothe him somehow but isn’t sure soothing is something that will work in this instance. Not without knowing why, exactly, Herbert is anxious. Why Herbert is going about this in this way at all, when he could have just kissed Dan and moved onward from there. He wonders if Herbert has ever been kissed, if this is all new to him. “Are you… Herbert, have you never done this before?” 

“No.” Herbert snaps, and Dan breathes a little sigh of relief that he has some glimmer of what's going on. 

“That’s okay, you know.” 

Herbert just looks at him. He crosses the room away from Dan and turns his back.

“Just stay over there for a moment, please.” Herbert says in short, clipped tones. 

Dan does as he’s told, keeps his distance as Herbert unbuttons his shirt. His shoulders are hunched almost to his ears and his head is bowed and if he hadn’t bluntly initiated this in the first place Dan would have asked that he stop and let Dan make sure he’s comfortable. 

It’s not surprising, really. Herbert is so closed off in every conceivable way and this stripping of his physical defenses, this laying himself bare for another person- for _Dan_ \- is something that Dan would have said he was incapable of even an hour ago. Herbert West, vulnerable in front of him, trembling slightly as he lets the white shirt fall away and the pale skin of his back is exposed. He takes a shaky breath. 

“Herbert,” Dan begins, because he doesn’t want to mock but there’s just no getting around how unexpected the sight presented to him is, and how much he consequently feels like Herbert is winding him up for nothing, “do you have a tattoo?” 

Herbert tenses for a moment and then visibly relaxes, and Dan takes this as permission to step forward. He rests a hand on Herbert’s hip, feeling the way he twitches under the touch, and the fingers of his other hand he trails across the spiky black design just below the small of Herbert’s back. “You have a biohazard tramp stamp?” Dan struggles to keep the humor out of his voice but Herbert picks up on it anyway; he goes rigid again. 

“An impulsive decision.” Herbert mutters. “I was young.” 

As though Herbert isn’t still young, Dan thinks, stroking a thumb over Herbert’s hipbone in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. As if the dismissal of his past self can distance Herbert from what is happening here and now, armor in words now he lacks a physical barrier. Dan lets out a breath he realizes is some confusing combination of pity and desire. The want to comfort mixed up with the _want_ , sharp and powerful, for Herbert. 

“Is this okay?” Dan asks as he moves closer. 

“Yes.” Herbert sounds impatient, and Dan does laugh this time, quietly and fondly as he caresses Herbert’s skin. 

“How about this?” He murmurs into Herbert’s ear as he snakes a hand around the front of Herbert’s hips and skims along the line of his pants. Herbert gasps and it’s the prettiest sound Dan has ever heard. 

“Dan-” Herbert’s voice is pinched and tight, and Dan hums his acknowledgement against the shell of his ear. When Herbert rocks his hips back Dan gives him an approving kiss against his jaw. He can feel Herbert’s breath rushing through him, feel his pulse racing. And then Herbert grab’s Dan’s hand and places it on his chest. 

For a moment Dan’s mind whirs, trying to figure out if Herbert is uncomfortable, if Dan’s moving too fast, if he just wanted Dan’s hand over his loudly-beating heart, before his fingers catch on scar tissue. 

Dan’s perception of the world, of Herbert, rearranges itself in a few seconds, and he doesn’t know what it says about him that the main thing he feels in reaction to the knowledge that Herbert is trans is that the tattoo had been more startling. The next thing he thinks is that he wishes Herbert would have told him before now, but he supposes it makes sense he’d want to keep it private. Enough disbelief and lack of credulity follows Herbert as it is. 

“Uh,” Dan says, and it’s the wrong way to start, of course it is, but they’re stumbling through this together now and that makes it a tiny bit less terrifying to ask, “how do you want— I mean, is there anything in particular that will make you uncomfortable? Because I have plenty of experience with, uh, but I don’t know if things are different, because of—?”

Herbert’s laugh is sharp and fake but his voice, when he speaks, is calm. “Are you going to make this into a problem or are you going to say what you mean?” 

Dan is hurt but he cannot even begin to imagine what this is like for Herbert, so he clears his throat and tries again. “What do you have down there?” 

Herbert is tense, so tense Dan can practically feel it radiating off him, and he adds “I want to make you happy and I want to know how best I can do that. I’ve been reliably informed I’m only halfway decent at, uh, eating someone out, and-” 

Herbert starts to laugh in earnest, the way he only ever laughs when he’s thrown Dan off balance and is relishing having startled him. He turns in Dan’s arms and kisses him, still grinning as he guides Dan’s hand back between his legs. 

“I have a cunt, if that’s all you’re really asking.” 

“That. That was part of it, yeah.” Dan says, swallowing as he feels the heat of him, as Herbert spreads his legs very slightly in response to Dan petting him through his clothes. “The other part is… uh.” 

“Say it.” Herbert demands, his eyes flicking up to Dan’s as he begins unbuttoning his shirt. 

“Tell me what you like.” Dan responds, and a flush goes up Herbert’s chest and neck. “Tell me what you want.” He watches as Herbert worries at his lower lip, as his eyes narrow behind his glasses. 

“I haven’t done this before, Dan.” Herbert snaps after a moment. “I don’t…” 

“Do you touch yourself?” Dan asks in a low voice, and the way Herbert’s eyelids flutter is reward in itself.

Herbert’s voice comes out ragged. “Sometimes. It’s… perfunctory, usually.” He fumbles the last button open and pushes Dan’s shirt off, trails a hand over Dan's chest.

Dan moves to pull Herbert closer, to slide his hand up and along the edge of his pants, teasing at the skin as his other hand goes around to the small of his back, up between his shoulderblades. Herbert makes a sound that sends all Dan's blood to his cock and he kisses him hungrily. He wants to bruise Herbert, suck something bright and dark into his neck just above the collar so that people will know this man is his. So that people will know that Herbert, who tries so hard to be unaffected by it all, has let Dan see him like this. 

Herbert’s voice is rough, stilted, his breath harsh in Dan’s ear as Dan moved to kiss his jaw. “When I- _oh_ \- when I masturbate, I’m thinking about you. Penetrating me.” 

It should sound clinical. It doesn’t. Dan slips his fingers down under the band of Herbert’s pants and feels his wetness. His teeth graze Herbert’s skin as he gasps out a breath against his neck.

“What else?” 

“Your cock.” Herbert is scratching a deep welt into his back, his nails digging in like he’s trying desperately to hold on lest he fall. His other hand is on the back of Dan’s head, holding him steady, fingers clenched tight in his hair. Dan feels an overwhelming rush of fondness and affection for the way his hips are arching forward, abortive little thrusts against the hand sliding between his thighs. “Inside me. Climaxing inside me.” 

“ _Fuck_ , Herbert.” Dan says, and slips his fingers into the heat of him as he grinds, hard, against Herbert’s hip. Herbert _whines_ , and Dan does bite him, feeling skin break under his teeth. 

Herbert is practically panting against his ear and Dan wants to pull back, suddenly, to slow down just to get a good look at his face, so he does. Eyes wide and glassy behind thick lenses, color high in his cheeks, his hair beginning to stick to his forehead. His mouth slightly open, breath coming fast and hot against Dan’s skin. The mark on his neck is violently purple and there are sharp puncture marks, welling with the barest dots of blood. When Dan stops moving his fingers Herbert shudders, blinks slow, wets his lips, and Dan wants to wreck him. Wants him underneath him, cutting into him like a knife. 

“Herbert…” Dan begins, his free hand going around the curve of Herbert’s ass, almost lifting him, and Herbert grinds against his fingers as he backs him up, up, until he’s level with the bed. He tries to lower Herbert down gently but he lets himself fall back and pulls Dan down on top of him. “Let me fuck you.” Dan says against his ear, and Herbert nods so vigorously his glasses slide down his nose. Dan makes to take them off and set them on the bedside table, but Herbert catches his hand. 

“I want to… I want…” Dan is still fingering Herbert, curling gently, and watching him struggle to form sentences because of it is making Dan almost light-headed. He’s never seen anybody react like this to being touched and he doesn’t know if it’s him or if it’s Herbert or it’s both, if it’s a matter of experience or inexperience or if it’s just because it’s _them_. If everything he’s ever done before, everyone he’s ever been with, was a prelude to this. To watching Herbert arch off the bed when Dan’s fingers press up inside him.

Herbert’s hands are scrabbling at Dan’s jeans, unbuttoning and unzipping and pushing them down off his hips, and every small brush of his hand against Dan’s cock sends jolts through him that nearly undo him. He takes a deep breath and removes his hand from Herbert’s pants so he can strip Herbert, and they are both undressed, naked before each other as if Dan hasn’t given Herbert everything worth having about himself already. Herbert’s eyes travel over him and the fact that it’s the same covetous look he gives fresh corpses should make Dan feel uncomfortable but just feels _seen_. 

For a moment, neither of them move. Herbert has sat up on his elbows, the better to look at Dan standing at the end of the bed, and he’s still breathing hard, still flushed. Dan wants him more than he knows how to say but he wants to try, anyway. Wants to make sure Herbert knows. 

“I love you.” Is what comes out, and it’s not what he’d meant to say and for a moment he is sure it is not what Herbert wants to hear, because his face closes off. Dan isn’t sure how to take it back, because he doesn’t want to, because he’s realized, in the seconds it’s been hanging in the air, that it’s true. He loves Herbert. He wants to shout it, whisper it, sew it inside Herbert’s chest so he can’t lose it, because he loves Herbert and Herbert is looking at him like he’s afraid again. 

“Oh.” Is all Herbert responds. It comes out broken, his voice cracking around the sound. Dan climbs onto the bed and Herbert doesn’t stop him, doesn’t object, so he crawls up the length of Herbert’s body and kisses him. 

“I love you.” Dan says against his mouth, and he can feel Herbert sigh into the next kiss. 

“I thought you were going to fuck me?” Herbert says when they part, and Dan laughs. 

“No reciprocity from you, eh?” He teases, and Herbert looks mortified. 

“I…” 

“I’m teasing you, Herbert, I know.” He moves down to kiss Herbert’s sternum. “I’ve always known.” 

“Good.” Herbert looks relieved. “I do love you. I wasn’t expecting… I didn’t think this was the sort of thing we said out loud.” 

“We’re in bed together.” Dan says softly, resting his chin on Herbert’s breastbone and looking up at him. 

“We are, yes.” Herbert agrees. He strokes Dan’s hair back from his forehead and pets at his head. “What should we do about that?” 

In response, Dan slides his hand back down between Herbert’s legs and brushes his thumb over his clit. Herbert jerks at the touch. 

“Don’t- I want your cock, Daniel.” Herbert says, and watching his mouth form those words makes the mentioned organ twitch against Herbert’s thigh. Herbert smirks. 

Dan watches Herbert’s face as he slides into him, watches the shape of his lips, the ways his eyes go heavy-lidded, the way his head falls back against the mattress. He tries to go slowly, gently, but Herbert tenses around him nonetheless. 

“Am I hurting you?” He asks, and Herbert’s eyes fly open again. 

“Yes.” He says. “Don’t stop.” 

Dan doesn’t. He has a sudden mental image of Herbert on the table in the basement lab, flayed open and exposed, as he buries his cock in him. It shouldn’t feel right. It does. 

Herbert draws him closer as he fucks into him, a steady stream of murmured praise tumbling from his lips, but it’s all static in comparison to the way Herbert’s short blunt nails have dug into his skin again, the way he’s mouthing at his throat. The way he’s closed his eyes again, the shape his mouth makes when he gasps. Dan wants to take him apart, find whatever small indestructible thing makes Herbert _Herbert_ and hold it up to the light. He imagines a scalpel, needles and sutures, Herbert’s heart in his hands. 

When Herbert comes it is almost silent, and Dan watches with something like reverence as his face contorts. The contrast between this Herbert, swollen lips and red face and eyes slightly wet behind his glasses, and the Herbert Dan has seen every day for the last two years pushes him over the edge. He settles down onto Herbert’s chest, rests against him, feels his pulse hammering away in his chest. Something shining. 

“Was that good?” Dan asks after several moments, feeling sleepy and warm and loving Herbert so much he almost can’t stand it.

“Yes.” Herbert says simply, and he shifts in the bed. “I would very much like to shower now, though.” 

“Oh. Alright.” Dan says, rolling off Herbert and watching him get up from the bed. Herbert looks at him as he stands, and Dan looks back, all five feet six inches of him, scars, mole on his lip, his hair askew, glasses still on but hopelessly smudged, and he _aches_. 

“I really do love you, you know.” He says as Herbert picks up his shirt from the floor and slides it back on, buttoning it haphazardly as he prepares to head for the bathroom. He looks back at Dan and smiles a genuine smile. 

“I’ve never doubted it.” He says, which Dan knows is a lie, but it’s just like Herbert to say such a thing. The sort of bright surety Dan admires so much in him. 

Dan lies in bed and thinks about stitching up a wound. 

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
